Toronto Charlie Condos | 122.83m | 36s | Great Gulf | Diamond Schmitt

from today
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Photo taken June 10, 2011


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that tiny little gap inbetween buildings is going to collect so much garbage over the years. I can't bring my self to understand why this was allowed to be built. WTF happened to the design control board? And I hope they had spent time into studying that wind affects for these tiny gaps.
 
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The focus on this "gap" issue seems to be entirely on the Charlie side but one could ask, assuming GG didn't own the Charlie site at the time, whether the Hudson should have been built with significant windows positioned where there was every possibility of this happening. And, if one were of the "buyer beware" school of thought, whether Hudson buyers should have had a look at the possible (likely) future of the site beside them. To have assumed that anyone developing the Charlie site would have compromised their plans out of the goodness of their hearts and consideration for Hudson exposures would have been a wee bit naive.
 
Regarding the gap issue, the building code sets out standards for the portion of a wall that can be glazed (i.e. windows) depending on how close that wall is to the property line. For a wall built on the property line, 0% of the wall can be glazed. As the wall moves back from the property line, the portion of the wall that can be glazed increases. The only way to get around this is to have an agreement registered to the land title of the neighbouring property that basically says that the neighbouring land owner agrees to not rebuild right up to his or her property line.

If Charlie is built to the property line, we can assume that Hudson is built two feet from this property line. While I don't know the exact proportion that is allowed to be glazed, it can be assumed that it is not far above zero. Therefore, the number of windows blocked is relatively low (although I agree that having any windows entirely blocked is pretty crappy).

Another possibility is that the glazing on the east side of Husdon aren't windows at all but actually spanderel planels to break up what would otherwise be a blank face. The Design Review Panel has been known to request that walls built up or close to the property line (and therefore relatively blank walls) have design elements added to articulate the facade.

Just thought I'd weigh in with some alternatives to "Great Gulf... what a bunch of assholes"
 
If I recall correctly, GG owned the property for Charlie while Hudson was still in sales, but I could be wrong.
 
Pic taken June 28, 2011


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fouronesix said:
Another possibility is that the glazing on the east side of Husdon aren't windows at all but actually spanderel planels to break up what would otherwise be a blank face. The Design Review Panel has been known to request that walls built up or close to the property line (and therefore relatively blank walls) have design elements added to articulate the facade.
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No, looking at pre-Charlie construction photos, the windows on Hudson's east facade are definitely windows. And those windows are rather large ones at that. The Hudson must had a variance to have those windows so close to the property line. That's the risk of having glazing near a property line as you never know what will be built next to you.
I feel sorry for the east facing residents of the Hudson -- hopefully the wall they will have to face is not dark and ugly.

You see this all the time in Manhattan -- Toronto is growing up.
 
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Great Gulf owned both the Hudson and Charlie sites when the Hudson was built. Contrary to the idea that Charlie is screwing over the owners of Hudson units with east-facing windows, it should be noted that those windows would almost never have gotten built on any other project due to the poor value proposition they represent to the developer.

By code, bedrooms require windows either direct to the outside or else in the interior facing the nearest exterior wall (at 40% coverage). The windows being discussed on the Hudson were understood to be 'living on borrowed time' and thus were in addition to the basic requirements for those suites - you will notice they are typically located in washrooms or kitchens or other non-code mandated rooms.

Due to their location tight to the property line, they have window sprinklers which mean that they are not 'unprotected openings' in the definition of the code, which (not 'windows') is what Fouronesix was making reference to. This of course adds to their expense from the perspective of the developer. No matter how big or small they are, these windows are and were 'bonus' glazing relative to other condos.

And the reflexive argument that the OMB or some other similar agent must have had some role in over-ruling common sense in forcing these windows to be built is especially absurd when one considers that an as-of-right building at the Charlie site would also have fully covered these windows over with its built form.
 
Were these windows sold to the purchasers as bonus glazing? Were the Hudson purchasers told they could be completely covered for being at the property line?
 
^^

it would legally make sense. Otherwise the site plan should never have been approved as the residances of the Hudson would've staged a revolt.
 
Pic taken July 4, 2011


From rear lane.


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